This project, funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust, explores the experiences of young people leaving care in the Russian Federation. It seeks to shed light on the sources of and barriers to resilience amongst care leavers in a rapidly transforming post-care environment.
Young people leaving care are among the most vulnerable members of any society. To avoid marginalization they are dependent both on the resilience they build while in care and on the services available to support them through often accelerated and compressed life stage transitions. This project focuses on the experiences of care leavers in Russia, where the need for strong forms of aftercare support is especially acute because of the ways in which the post-Soviet context has magnified the role of family and kinship in managing young people’s access to education, work and housing (Walker 2010). However, what little is known about the patchwork of services available to care leavers in Russia indicates that it is seriously inadequate, often increasing rather than mitigating the risk of marginalization. The project intends to shed further light both on the forms of transition and aftercare services available to care leavers in Russia, and on the ways care leavers are able to build resilience to overcome the obstacles they face, either through or outside of such services.
The project runs from 2016-2019.
Funder: British Academy, £10,000